Contributed photo
Jailed local teacher and color guard instructor Michael Christian, right, is pictured here with Midwestern State University junior Bobbi Burgess (left) and Samantha Roderick (center), who marched with the MSU color guard team under Christian's direction.

Michael Christian, a local teacher and color guard director who is jailed on five counts of theft totaling $22,695, is accused by a group of girls and their parents of taking $5,000 entrusted to him for safekeeping by the Midwestern State University color guard he directed for two years.

The 18 girls, most of them MSU students, allegedly gave Christian their money to pay for dues, fees and travel arrangements for the team's April trip to a national color guard competition in Dayton, Ohio.

Now that Christian sits in the Wichita County Jail Annex, the girls say their money is gone. They launched two last-minute fundraisers to amass enough money to bus themselves to Dayton for the competition but are still unsure if they have raised enough.

Some felt so desperate that they considered selling their plasma, but were urged not to by a local mother.

"I'm real upset," said MSU junior Bobbi Burgess on Tuesday. She worries the trip may be in jeopardy now. "This has been my dream for a long time, and now there's the possibility I can't go. I paid my money."

She gave Christian $500 for the trip, but now has until Tuesday to come up with more cash.

"I trusted him. Everybody on the team trusted him," Burgess said. "We had no idea of his past."

She based her confidence in him on how enthusiastic he was for their sport.

"He seemed to have had the same love for the sport that we did," she said. "He was always there for us, to talk about any situations we had. That's the way everybody felt."

MSU Police Chief Dan Williams said he is investigating the missing money, and the city of Wichita Falls continues to investigate Christian as well.

Christian has been accused of duping three local schools and a fourth in Oklahoma by giving fake birth dates on employment applications, which enabled him to elude two Department of Public Safety background checks and iffy resume verification, to land a variety of jobs where he got uniformly glowing reviews.

At MSU, he worked two years as a color guard director, writing and directing the color guard's routines, earning about $2,000 per year, paid as a vendor by the university's band department.

"At least the first year, everything was very good and properly done, and no issues," Williams said.

MSU hired him on the strength of his relationship with Bright Ideas Charter School, where he worked since 2009 as a fifth- and sixth-grade English and history teacher and directed the school's dance program and its state testing.

Rider High School sought a recommendation from MSU and hired Christian, who taught daily, writing and directing programs for the band's color guard and often traveling with the band.

Jenks High School in Jenks, Okla., also briefly hired Christian in the 2010 summer. He left suddenly, mailing back his keys, said a booster club past president.

Christian ultimately was jailed and accused of faxing purchase orders for band merchandise to out-of-state companies and having the orders shipped to his home address on Westridge Drive, claiming that it was the location of Hamilton School. The orders were shipped but never paid for.

The Times Record News found that Christian had prior criminal theft activity in Wichita Falls dating back to 1994 and more recently in Maryland and Minnesota that showed up on the subscription service Publicdata.com. It even included an arrest by the MSU police April 3, 1997.

"Most con men are very good at getting along with people and getting people to trust them," Williams said.

Kim Woods, the mother of MSU student Bobbi Burgess, said at first her daughter defended Christian. "Now she's mad," she said.

The girls are trying desperately to replace the stolen money, Woods said. "I know they want to go, and they're trying their hardest, and this man took it away from them."

The team competed last week in the North Texas Colorguard Association competition, coming in third out of three independent groups that performed. The next competition, the Winter Guard International in Dayton, will bring in 60 teams from around the world. The MSU girls hope to leave Tuesday.

Burkburnett High School teacher Christina Hallwachs volunteered to help the girls finish their competitive routine. "It was such a weird situation. They need some help finishing their routines," she said.

Christian planned to travel with the girls as they competed in the preliminaries, then perhaps the semifinals, with their ultimate goal of making it to the finals. Everything was proceeding normally, with Christian still working on the routine and helping the girls learn it, Hallwachs said.

Alan Black, MSU assistant music professor, said Christian began collecting the girls' trip money in January. He confirmed the girls lost about $5,000. "We had done this before and never had any problem. They paid it to him. I'm never at rehearsals, and he was always there."

Christian told Black he would collect the money and when he had a substantial amount, he would turn it over to Black to deposit. "They should have been bringing it to me. I agree with that," Black said.

Even looking back, Black said he saw no red flags in Christian's behavior. "We were all totally taken off guard. He must have an on-and-off switch," Black said.

Black expects the girls will attend the Dayton competition, a fourth time for MSU's team, with some monetary help from MSU.

MSU has agreed to help reimburse the girls for money stolen by Christian, a decision that was confirmed by Provost Alisa White, according to Ron Fischli, dean of MSU's College of Fine Arts.

"Our intention is to help them take the trip," Fischli said. "In my own area, there's some money I might identify as replacement."

The university won't provide more money beyond what was stolen, he said.

Anyone wishing to contribute may send a check made out to the MSU music department to Music Department, MSU Band, 3410 Taft Blvd., Wichita Falls, TX 76308.